13. Christmas.

Christmas Eve we were in bed after putting all the kid's gifts under the tree. Well, the tree in the hall outside our bedroom (which used to be the dining room, but we moved down to make it easier for me since the MS.) and about 2.15 - 2.30am, we were woken by a noise upstairs and footsteps on the landing. Thinking it was one of the kids, I told them to go back to bed, but the footsteps continued down the stairs. There was the sound of something being put down on the floor, then the footsteps went back up the stairs again. There was the sound of a door scraping on carpet and closing, then silence.
The following day I asked the kids if any of them had been downstairs in the night. No one owned up and we put it down to Regan (15) sleepwalking - which he has done in the past.
The odd thing was that the only room in the house which is carpeted is the smallest bedroom which we use as an office - everywhere else has laminate flooring. Not that odd, you may think, but the office door isn't on it's hinges at the moment - in fact it hasn't been on it's hinges for the past year, so how did the door scrape over the carpet and shut?
On Christmas Day, after all the presents had been given out, we found one tucked under the tree without a name on it. It was wrapped in the same paper we used so we assumed that it was one that had been left by one of the children. None of them knew anything about it. And the tape used to seal it was wider than the stuff we used.
Anyway, a couple of days later, we had to go into the attic to get something and when we opened the door in the ceiling, lying on the loft insulation, was a roll of tape the same width as that used to seal up the mystery present.

The next thing that happened was that we noticed that one of the ornaments in a display cabinet on the landing - in the corner where I saw the little boy and where the dog used to stand barking - kept moving no matter how many times we set it straight. So we made sure it was facing forwards and then locked the door. We put the key in the bottom drawer of Julie's bedside cabinet and forgot about it.
A couple of days later, Julie shouted me upstairs. The ornament - a small dragon in an egg with a sapphire birth stone - had turned about 90 degrees. The door was still locked, and the key was still in the bottom drawer where we had put it.
We've not unlocked the door since and the dragon has now moved 180 degrees around.

And finally, today, Julie went to the bathroom and found Ashley's (19) badge from when he was in the Air Cadets in the middle of the floor. She had literally gone in there straight after me yet when I was in there, yet I didn't see the badge. In fact I would swear on my oath that it wasn't in there when I was. The last time anyone had seen the badge was downstairs by the 'phone, which was where it had been kept since Ashley was awarded it.

It's been a great Christmas. I wonder what we have to look forward to in the New Year?

Happy New Year everyone.